


Smaller on the Outside

by XxStarlieyXx



Series: Smaller on the Outside [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Clara as Rose and the Doctors daughter, F/M, Pete's World, Post-Episode AU: s02e13 Doomsday, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Reunion, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:37:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6898864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxStarlieyXx/pseuds/XxStarlieyXx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loosley based of of "The Impossible Girl: Daughter of The Bad Wolf and The Oncoming Storm". The story focuses more on Clara being raised by Rose and 10.5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smaller on the Outside

_ Darleg Uv Straden. Pete’s World. 2007 _

 

“There’s five us of now, Mum, Dad, Mickey, Me,” she took a breath, “and the baby.” Rose had found out she’d been expecting a month ago. The Doctor’s child would be born in less than half a year- with superior Time Lord biology and whatnot.

 

“You’re not,” The Doctor began, worried, glancing at Mickey.

 

Rose stood there, realizing the Doctor’s expression. That man would be ready to tear down universes and risk all of existence, sure, but she had say it to him. If he hadn’t known about her circumstance before, like Rose has expected, he really should know now. 

 

“Three months gone,” Rose laughed, nervously, “Hospital said it would be twins, but Torchwood confirmed it’s just a binary vascular system.” She sighed. The Doctor just stood there, blank faced.

 

“This is good, right?” Rose added, making sure the Doctor was still there, “Another Time Lord on the way- whole new universe for them to explore.”

 

“Rose,” The Doctor finally replied, “Human / Time Lord reproduction has never been possible. I’m worried about you.”

 

“I’m worried too, Doctor,” Rose agreed, “but we’ll work it out. Torchwood’s much nicer here. I’ve got my own flat, a job there, everything’s fine.”

 

“At Torchwood?” The Doctor was appalled, “Rose, you’ve seen how dangerous they could be.” He didn’t want Rose or his child anywhere near an institution like that.

 

“Like I said, much better here. Gave up torture in the 1930’s- found it ineffective. Something with the Weeping Angels.”

 

“Rose, promise you’ll try to be safe?” The Doctor sighed.

 

“I’ll try,” Rose laughed, “Can’t promise anything.” She and The Doctor has fallen silent.

 

“I’m burning up a sun just to say goodbye,” The Doctor started.

 

“And?” Rose asked, concerned.

 

“Well, if it’s my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I-” he flickered away.

 

**I.**

 

“Just time for one last trip,” The Doctor announced to the occupants of his TARDIS, while flicking some switches, “Dårlig Ulv Stranden. Better known as…”

 

“Bad Wolf Bay,” The Metacrisis Doctor continued, as they exited the TARDIS.

 

“Oh, fat lot of good this is,” Jackie complained, “Back of beyond, bloody Norway. I'm gonna have to phone your father. He's on the nursery run.”

 

Rose turned to The Doctor, “I was pregnant, do you remember? Had a baby girl.”

 

“Aw brilliant, what d'you call her?” The pinstriped Doctor asked

 

“Clara. Clara Tyler, or Smith if you’d prefer,” Rose answered with a smirk.

 

“That’s a brilliant name,” The Doctor smiled.

 

“Latin for bright and clear,” the other Doctor added.

 

“She certainly lives up to that,” Rose agreed, “Hold on, this is the parallel universe, right?” she questioned, realizing The Doctors’ plan.

 

“You're back home,” The Doctor confirmed.

 

“And the walls of the world are closing again.” Donna continued, “Now that the reality bomb never happened. It's dimensional retro-closure. See I really get that stuff now.”

 

Rose began to tear up, sounding distraught, “No, but I spent all that time trying to find you, I risked never seeing Clara again, I'm not going back now!”

 

“But you've got to. 'Cause we saved the universe, but at a cost,” The Doctor pointed out, “And the cost is the human Doctor. He destroyed the Daleks, he committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.” 

 

“You made me!” The human Doctor responded, indignantly.

 

“Exactly, you were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge,” The Time Lord Doctor responded, turning to Rose, “Remind you of someone?” Rose avoided eye contact with him.

 

“That's me, when we first met,” he continued. Rose looked back at him, tearing up. “And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him.”

 

“But he's not you.” Rose insisted as she blinked back tears.

 

“He needs you. That's very me,” The Doctor persuaded, making her laugh a bit.

 

“But it's better than that though! Don't you see what he's trying to give you? Tell her, go on!” Donna nudged The Doctor to continue.

 

Rose faced The Metacrisis Doctor. “I look like him, I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart,” he explained.

 

“Which means?” Rose prompted.

 

“I'm part human. Specifically the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you. If you want.” He smiled hopefully, “And Clara too.”

 

“You'll grow old at the same time as me?” Rose repeated, not daring to believe it.

 

“Together,” The Metacrisis Doctor responded. He smiled. Rose shook her head in disbelief, almost smiling before she reached out for his chest. She felt his one heartbeat. Donna and The Doctor smiled, but the moment was interrupted when the TARDIS groaned and the light flashed.

 

“We gotta go, ” The other Doctor interrupted, “This reality's sealing itself off.” Tears were streaming down Rose’s face. “Forever,” the Time Lord Doctor added, as if rubbing salt in an open wound. He turned to follow Donna back into the TARDIS.

 

“But... it's still not right!” Rose insisted, “'Cause the Doctor's... still,” she gestured to the Time Lord Doctor, “you.”

 

“And I'm him,” The Doctor acknowledged sadly, pointing to The Metacrisis Doctor.

 

“Alright,” Rose sighed, before building up her determination to have a question answered, “Both of you, answer me this.” The Metacrisis Doctor approached her, “When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life,” she glared at him, “what was the last thing you said to me?” Both Doctors remained silent. “Go on, say it!” Rose urged.

 

“I said, Rose Tyler,” The Time Lord Doctor replied.

 

“Yeah, and how was that sentence gonna end?” Rose asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Does it need saying?” he asked, irritated, knowing the direction of where this was going.

 

Rose turned to the human Doctor, “And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?”

 

The Doctor turned and whispered “I love you.” in Rose’s ear. She smiled widely.

 

“Quite right, too,” she mimicked what the Time Lord Doctor has said to her at Badwolf Bay, about three years before.

 

After an awkwardly long and incredibly silent Zeppelin ride (3 hours and 42 minutes according to the human Doctor’s superior physiology), Rose, Jackie, and The Metacrisis Doctor got into a limo. Rose was the first to speak, but only to ask that she and The “new, new, _ new _ ” Doctor accompany her to pick up Clara from day care. Jackie agreed. 

 

When they arrived at the “dreaded child shelter” as The Metacrisis Doctor had called it, Rose was embarrassed to find that she was 15 minutes late (promise it won’t happen again). The Doctor saw a young girl- no more than three by the looks of it- with dark brown hair and large brown eyes sitting on a bench, kicking her legs in boredom, while skimming through a short chapter book.

“Mummy?” a she asked, getting up from her bench and tugging on Rose’s sleeve.

 

“Yes, Clara?” Rose answered.

 

“Who’s dat?” Clara asked, with her three year old lisp. She pointed towards Metacrisis, with an imploring look.

 

“Ummm,” Rose began, “That’s…”

 

“John,” The Metacrisis introduced himself, “John Noble.” He turned to Rose and whispered, “Donna’s surname.”

 

Rose nodded and Clara scrutinized the newly dubbed ‘John’. “Hi!” she greeted cheerfully.

 

“Hi!” he responded just as cheerfully. 

 

“John is going to be staying with us,” Rose explained, looking around. The teacher was waiting for them to leave. “Well,” she said, “Goodbye.”

 

After that the four of them awkwardly got back into the limo. Clara sat on her Mum’s lap, right next to the Doctor. “So,  _ John _ ,” Rose laughed, “What do you think of, um,  _ London _ .” She was, of course, referring to Pete’s world.

 

It was a moment of silence before the blue suited Doctor responded. “Right, John, that’s my name. I think London is brilliant, Big Ben, loads of museums, great big spinny wheel-”

 

“We don’t have that here,” Rose whispered, “No one was there to stop the nestene consciousness.”

 

“Right. I totally knew that,” he laughed, “Well the history is very interesting.”

 

Clara smiled at that, “Mummy tode me stowies about da queen being attacked by wewolves!” Rose and John shared a knowing look.

 

“But they’re just stories,” Rose ‘reminded’ her. John was somewhat disappointed.

 

“Where you from?” Clara asked. She was going through the phase many young humans (and Time Lords for that matter) went through, asking questions at every given opportunity.

 

“Somewhere far away,” John said, as vaguely as possible.

 

“Where? Like Cawdiff? Me and Mummy went there. It was sooooooo,” she spread her arms apart for emphasis, “long.”

 

“Even further away than that,” John said, smiling, thinking to himself,  _ Hey, look at this thing- child- I helped to make _ . 

 

“Why you come here?” she asked, while preoccupying herself with a slinky that Rose had pulled out of her purse earlier.

 

There was a silence. How  _ did  _ he answer that? Thankfully Rose covered for him, “Why don’t you tell John about the book you’ve been reading?”

 

Clara brighten went on and explained that her book was a present from Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Pete for her birthday. It was about the Greek gods and goddesses (John had been tempted to mention he’d met a few of them). Her favorite was Artemis because she liked that Artemis was the goddess of stars, but she also liked Hestia (which she pronounced Hess-ta) because she is the goddess of the food, and by extension, cookies. And she really loved cookies (another trait she had gotten from him). Rose was smiling the whole time, and so was John.

 

As they approached at the block where Rose was living, Clara got antsy. She grinned when she saw a man standing at the doorway of a fairly large house.

 

“Gwandpa!” Clara said while trying to propel herself off of Rose’s lap. 

 

Rose sighed and unbuckled the seatbelt. “Grandpa is at work now,” she told Clara, who frowned, “But, we could invite them over for dinner if that’s okay.” Clara smiled again.

 

“Pwease!” Clara said, bouncing up and down and doing her best “puppy dog eyes”.

 

“Okay,” replied Jackie, “I’ll ask, but I can’t promise anything.”

 

Clara seemingly took that as a yes and started rambling about something that no one could really understand, except for John as he also had a habit of rambling himself (and he could also speak baby). Something about how they were going to eat nothing but bananas. Definitely his kid, and he felt extremely proud of her enthusiasm for bananas.

 

The rest of the drive to Rose’s flat was more social than the Zepplin. Mainly, because Clara asked a question after every second of silence, but also because Rose was slowly warming up to John.

 

(...)

Rose’s flat was characteristically messy, though thankfully any choking hazards seemed to be kept out of reach. He was glad to see that she hadn’t changed too much. Rose had let out an embarrassed laugh, John had laughed at her embarrassment, and Clara was impatient to give John a tour of her house.

 

Clara tried to drag them to her room as quickly as possible, (“the waws awe puwple!”). He noticed the large bookshelf, only half filled, her huge pile of stuffed cats (not dogs, not teddy bears, but  _ cats _ ), and a table which had a mini model of the solar system. The two “adults” laughed when she told John that he could sleep in her old crib now that she was in her “big girl bed”. John nodded and Clara beamed, although Rose only let out an exasperated sigh while laughing.  

 

Soon after that, Clara seemingly tired herself out, so Rose tucked her into her bed for a nap. John and Rose then met in the living room area (which was probably the size of Rose’s apartment in their other universe). 

 

“So,” Rose said awkwardly, “What do you want to do with this ever so precious ‘one  _ human _ life.’” 

 

“Not work for Torchwood,” John teased, “Um, apart from that, I don’t really know. The Doctor, the other one, gave me a chunk of TARDIS coral before we left.”

 

“Which means...” Rose asked, not really following.

 

“It means that we could grow our own TARDIS, takes a few years, sure, but think about it, we could travel like we used to, and the best part is, there’s a whole new universe to explore!”

 

Rose smiled, “That does sound tempting,” she agreed, “But  _ I  _ have a life here. I have a job now- one that I actually care about. And Clara, for god’s sake! What about her-”

 

“In a few years she’ll be old enough,” John continued, “She’d love it.”

 

“You’ve known her for an hour,” Rose countered, “you can’t speak for her.”   
  


“She’s part you  _ and _ part me,” John went on, “Why  _ wouldn’t _ she love it?”

 

“Fine,” Rose agreed, “maybe it’s not a terrible idea, but Clara doesn’t even know about aliens existing.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell her?” John demanded, his “Oncoming Storm” accidentally showing. It was the one problem he had had with the way Rose was raising their daughter. “Sorry,” he apologized, “Humans have so many more hormones than Time Lords do, so I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now.”

 

“You and me both,” Rose laughed. “I didn’t tell her because…” she trailed off.

 

“Why?” John asked, “I won’t judge.”

 

“I was scared she’d hate you,” Rose admitted, “I didn’t want her thinking that you just left us here, or put me in danger. She thinks her real dad is a scientist studying in Antarctica.” Rose laughed.

 

“Do you plan on telling her now?” John asked, “You’re going to have to tell her eventually- the girl’s got two hearts and is developing much too fast for you humans to fully understand.”

 

“I suppose so… Do you think you can pretend to have come back from studying in Antarctica?” Rose asked. “ I never told her your name, or showed her any pictures. I don’t even think the thought that she even  _ had _ a dad occurred to her until Father’s Day last year.”

 

“Okay, so we’ll tell her when she wakes up then?” he asked, innocently. 

 

Rose raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t mean today, just, eventually. Y’know, when she’s old enough.”

 

“Kids are smarter than you think,” John sighed, “especially Time Lords. When I was her age, I was learning algebra- or the Gallifreyan equivalent- more theorems, less trial and error.”

 

“Please promise not to put a lot of pressure on Clara,” Rose warned, “she’s still part human, and I don’t want her to hate you.”

 

“Time Lord genes are dominant,” he muttered, “not in phenotypes, those are actually all pretty much recessive since our DNA is ever changing, but she does have two hearts,” John pointed out.

 

“Do- I mean John,” Rose smiled, “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

 

“Yes,” he laughed, “that’s why you told her that she had two hearts so she could love more.” He thought it was funny that humans perceive love as coming from the heart. 

 

“You have to admit it’s cute,” Rose laughed, “she told all of her friends that.”

 

“And you?” John said, attempting to change the topic, “Do you have friends?”

 

Rose looked awkwardly into the distance, “Yes, ish,” she responded, “I hang out with people from work, I’m on a group chat with some of the other “soon to be heiresses” I met at parties. They’re obnoxiously arrogant though. Then of course there was Mickey- god, how do I explain his disappearance to Clara.” Her breath rate sped up.

 

“It’ll be okay,” he said, “I’m sure she will understand once we  _ tell her the truth _ .” He felt incredibly guilty about hiding what happened to Clara. 

 

“It’s not a good idea. She’s too excited today anyways,” Rose sighed. “Look, I’m not going to hide it from her forever.”

 

“So what’s the harm in telling her now?” John insisted. “I’m not trying to be invasive or anything, but she is  _ my daughter  _ too.”   
  


“Yeah?” Rose said, her anger building up, “Then where were you for the first three years- four if you include that Gallifreyan pregnancy- not fun by the way? Where were you when we needed you most?” She regretted that as soon as she said it.

 

For once, John was silent. He took a deep breath and stared at his converses.

 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, “shouldn’t have said that.” 

 

“No,” he said, “It’s okay, not like I could help it or anything. If you really think it’s a bad idea- don’t tell Clara,” he submitted, “It’s not my decision to make.”

 

Suddenly Rose noticed a small hand tugging her arm. The owner of that small hand was wearing her pajamas and was holding her favorite stuffed cat. 

  
“Tell me what?” she asked, her big brown eyes seemingly getting even bigger and a huge grin spread across her face. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, John takes on the last name 'Noble' when he introduces himself to Clara. When Rose tells John Clara's name, she says 'Smith' because she assumes that he's going to use 'Smith' as a last name, since that what he normally does (she also says 'Tyler' but that's because she's unmarried at the moment).


End file.
